"How much I know depends on how much you are willing to admit it. As for the final result of the
lawsuit, I was just the duty officer on the day of the fire, and I had to resign and find a new job too. "
Hayden looked at Arnold’s wife, and her wording was ambiguous.
Arnold’s wife had been nursing a grievance for some time. After hearing this, she couldn't help but
assume the worst side and told the truth all at once.
Everyone who knew Arnold knew that he liked to smoke, and he couldn't quit his addiction to smoking.
For this, he deliberately broke the fire extinguishing device in the kitchen storage room so that it
wouldn't detect the smoke and activate the alarm system. But he was cautious too by taking the
cigarette butts out of the kitchen every time after smoking. And there wouldn't be any spark of the
cigarette to cause the fire.
The situation of that day was as usual, except that when Arnold smoked in the storage room, he saw
Baron there and caught him committing arson. The two argued, and the cigarette fell on the flammable
materials, which caused things out of control.
Afterward, Baron kneeled in front of Arnold, pleading for forgiveness. Arnold was soft-hearted, and he
decided to bear the consequences by resigning and leaving the hotel.
Arnold and his wife treated Baron as their own son, hoping for a person to take care of them in their old
ages. But there were always those who would never be grateful. After Baron's conversion to the hotel,
he was afraid of being implicated by Arnold about the fire. So he made a call to them, breaking the
hearts of the old couple.
"This heartless little brat, he threatened Arnold that he would tell others that the fire extinguishing
device was destroyed by him if he revealed the truth. Then, all the property damage losses were to be
borne by us."
Hayden frowned, pondering. If Baron had such a bad personality, it wouldn't be surprising for him to
commit the arson as long as someone gave him a generous reward to do it.
The first thing that came into her mind was a figure that she saw in the crowd when coming out of the
fire that day, Addison.
She thought over that Addison was the greatest beneficiary of this affair, and she had sufficient
motivations to do it.
…
The next afternoon, Hayden took a flight back to Nanking.
The fire's truth was basically clear, but it wouldn't be easy to find out the one behind all of this.
On the plane, the flight attendants were seating the passengers.
"Ms. Downey is it?"
The flight attendant's sweet voice sounded, and Hayden got her mind back from outside the window,
"Yes. I am."
"Well, we've upgraded you to business class."
Hayden was stunned for a moment, "Why?"
"I'm not quite sure about it. But this seat is now occupied by someone else. Can you follow me to your
seat in the business class?"
Hayden was bewildered as she followed the flight attendant to the business class.
"Ms. Downey, this is your seat. Feel free to call me if you need anything."
"Sure."
Hayden responded as she sat down in her seat. She glanced sideways at the man beside her, whose
face was just blocked by the newspaper. She was startled, "Mr. Sanchez?"
Cleveland revealed his face from the newspaper. He was wearing gold-rimmed glasses, and his eyes
were hiding his emotions. "Ms. Downey, we meet again."
Hayden was alarmed as if everything was as expected to him.
"So, it's Mr. Sanchez who arranged for the upgrade of my cabin?"
Cleveland held up his glasses. The distinguishing personality traits of a business elite were reflected in
him. Even the way he talked was so comprehensive, "I just heard that Ms. Downey happens to be on
the same flight as me. So I just instructed them and hope that you have a comfortable journey. After all,
I still owe you a favour. Having you to come to me initiatively is unlikely to happen."
"There's no such thing as a coincidence."
Hayden looked Cleveland in the eye, not even hiding her doubts.
Who would believe that Cleveland just happened to know that she was on the same flight as him? It
was apparent that he wasn't even thinking of concealing his purpose with such a clumsy explanation.
"Whether it's by chance or deliberate, it's our fate too, right?"
Hayden buckled up, giving a faint smile, "I have a fiancé, Mr. Sanchez."
The purpose of a man approaching a woman had always been so straightforward. It all depended on
how the woman responded to it.
Cleveland seemed not to care about it. He even smiled gently, "Congratulations."
After saying this, the two of them had no more interactions.
After the flight had taken off, Hayden fell asleep quickly. Cleveland closed the newspaper, looking
sideways at her, and he made an unexpected move.
He took out a camera and took a photo of himself with Hayden, who was sleeping.
The assistant who was just across the aisle from him was watching this. His eyes were on stalks and
hadn't come back to his sense for a long time.
Cleveland acted as nothing had happened. He beckoned the flight attendant over and instructed her to
bring Hayden a blanket to cover her.
Hayden was sleeping soundly and naturally didn't know what had happened.
She didn't know the use of the photo until much later. Even though she had expected that Cleveland
was up to something for giving her an upgrade, she was so sleepy and fell asleep too.
…
At the ST Group headquarters, Magnus James had conducted a thorough investigation into the fire's
cause as instructed by Joseph Beckham. After a week of the inquiry, he brought a pile of information to
Joseph.
"This matter has little to do with Arnold. The damage of the smoke alarm system inferred that Arnold
broke it deliberately just to smoke. But the source of the fire in the warehouse was not the cigarette.
There were several ignition sources and there were traces of diesel fuel burning on the ground too. It's
an arson."
Joseph stared at the monitoring screen in front of him, with his eyes gloomy, "Who did this?"
"An internal staff." Magnus looked certain, "It surely has something to do with Arnold's apprentice. But
there's someone else behind him. His bank account has a large amount of money transferred in."
"Competitors?"
"I thought so as first, but I saw something suspicious in the surveillance."
As he said, Magnus set the surveillance the night before the fire. There was a truckload of fresh
ingredients at the hotel back door unloading for the use of the following day.
"Here." Magnus framed the picture, zoomed in, and pointed to a man in a black trench coat who was
unloading the goods. "I saw this man before, from the surveillance in front of Caesar's house in Lanxi
Town."
Joseph's gaze deepened with a sense of chill.
The man in the picture was wearing a cap, and he could vaguely see a long scar on the right side of his
face, giving them the creeps.
"Identity and background." Joseph said concisely.
Magnus answered understandingly, "I've checked it. His name is Herman Lester, nicknamed Scarred
Man Herman. The police department has a lot of his criminal record on intentional injuries. He was
released six months ago, and now he involves in the black market, collecting debts for the others."
How could someone who collected debts for others now being a porter of the food supplier? It was
rather suspicious.
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